42. I was six years old and held in a neighbor’s mentally ill sons mobile home for three weeks.
“I am a kidnap survivor. I was taken from my front yard when I was six years old and held in a neighbor’s mentally ill sons mobile home for three weeks. I was raped and forced to do things no one should at that age. Sex is difficult still for me at 35. Connecting with someone on that level is very hard, because I relive what happened and get nervous. Its awkward. I’m awkward. I get better as I get to know my partner. She just needs to be just a little patient with me, and we usually can have a pretty great sex life. I have had long-term relationships in the past and hope to have more in the future. Its defiantly not something I bring up on a first date though. I just don’t do well with one night stand kinda things.”
—sometimes_always
43. I ask them to stop again, and again, and again.
“I had a crush on this girl for the longest time, and at some point I’d actually have called it a genuine love, even though I was only fifteen. We had fallen out at one point over some trivial bullshit and had recently started hanging out again, and over the course of our year apart we had developed rapidly into ourselves, but our draw to one another was still very powerful.
It was nice to be talking to her again. I had missed her.
So one day myself and, I’ll say, Natalie, were hanging out, and she introduced me to her ex-boyfriend, who we’ll call Dave. The two had broken up but gotten onto such good terms that they were hanging out again. Dave was short, about five eight. I myself was over six foot and somewhere in the ballpark of two hundred pounds. I played rugby. I was a very large, athletically built human being.
But Dave seemed pretty all right. We quipped to one another, we laughed, we had fun. With us were two other guys, who we’ll call Denny and Brian. Denny being a close friend of mine.
So we all decide to hang out at Denny’s house and head over. It’s a small place, but we carve out the living room to chill in and the whole thing is pretty nice. There was a mattress on the floor because he had had people over, which turned his small living room into a rather comfortable living space. We proceeded to relax there for a while.
I was sprawled on the mattress, Natalie was lying beside, and Dave was beside her. Denny and Brian were on the couch above us. me I proceeded to jokingly read a children’s book. I forget the actual joke but I’m sure it was hilarious. Natalie seemed to draw particularly close and she embraced me. I fancied my chances, it seemed she was interested, and I remember the look in her eyes. That singular picture cemented in my mind; she had these huge, china-blue eyes.
But the situation was complicated by the fact that Dave seemed to be reciprocating all the movements she was making on me, on her, which was uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I had no experience with women at the time, and the concept of a sexual encounter was way beyond my thoughts at the time. I was just reveling in the concept of having my thoughts affirmed. If I had clued in and shifted her right there and then, maybe everything would have gone better. But I didn’t. And it didn’t.
So she turns, and the whole while holding me, proceeds to start making out with Dave.
I am made profoundly and astoundingly uncomfortable by this occurrence; I am lying on the mattress with them and am being held by them. I proceed to start reading the book and joke about how uncomfortable my predicament is. Brian immediately realizes the gravity of what is occurring and peaces the fuck out; he doesn’t want any part in it. I’m fairly certain that Denny is asexual, and he doesn’t really seem to grasp what is occurring as anything more than funny.
But neither Natalie or Dave seem discouraged by my voicing my distaste for the situation. They start getting handsy with me. They look at me and joke while they both put their hands on me. I ask them to stop and laugh about it, because hey it’s kinda funny, right? I mean, I’m laughing, so it must be. But my laugh isn’t my normal laugh; it’s panicked. I’m panicking, but I’m laughing. It’s just joking around.
So I ask them to stop again, and again, and again. I’m retreating across the mattress, inch my inch, and they follow me. I fall off the side and get tucked into the side between the mattress and the couch. Denny is laughing, while Dave and Natalie encroach ever onwards.
Lucky for me, there’s actually a blanket for the couch, and because we’re just joking around, I drape it over myself while telling them to stop. I laugh about the situation, but they just seem amused. They start playing a game of ‘Let’s find parts of him under the blanket’ and I can feel a hand around my crotch. Denny joins in to play, still clearly totally unaware of what is going on.
This continues for who knows how long. Could have been five minutes, could have been an hour, as I pathetically shimmy whilst under the blanket, inching my way along the mattress, asking them to stop, as my nervous laughter gets more and more panicked. They do not relent. They laugh. It’s hilarious.
I eventually get up on top of the couch and sit there. They start groping me, but then Natalie and Dave decide it would be funny to sit on me and make out. Denny laughs.
I’m still. Shell-shocked. They get bored and decide to go to the kitchen. I sit, quietly. Then I peek my head out from under the blanket and lie down straight across the couch. I’m totally silent and utterly stunned. I get this sinking feeling. This brutal, twisting, stomach-turning feeling in the depths of my soul. I feel so…unclean.
After who knows how long I stumble out into the kitchen. Natalie seems to clue in that I’m upset, but Dave and Denny just keep on laughing. It is hilarious, after all.
A short time later a group of my friends show up. They immediately pick that there’s something wrong with me, but I kind of avoid answering directly. They think I’m sad that Dave shifted Natalie because I liked her. I couldn’t understand it myself, let alone expect someone else to.
I head home early, and stumble back into my houses. ‘How was your day?’ ‘Fine. Yeah, it was nice. Yeah.’ My answers are distant even for a teenager. I’m feeling sick to my stomach.
Natalie messages me later asking me if I’m OK. I respond that I am not. I am not OK at all. Everything is wrong. I feel so numb and so bitter all at the same time. So unclean. So emasculated. She apologizes.
I cried when I told my sister. I needed to say something to someone, right? She said that I had been sexually assaulted. She asked me if I wanted to call the rape help line. I rejected the mere idea. It wasn’t sexual assault. It couldn’t have been.
I looked it up. It was.
It fucked me up. It made me feel so pathetic. I was disgusted with myself. I was so much bigger than both of them, but it didn’t matter. I was strong, I was fast, I was powerful. It didn’t matter. I was totally humiliated. I was utterly emasculated. I was fucking violated.
And I stayed friends with Natalie. I got over it pretty quick and settled on blaming Dave. After all, I liked her. Someone told me that I only forgave her because I liked her, and maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not.
See, the thing is that it’s impossible to explain the emotions that came with what happened. The twisted levels of just how wrong the whole thing was. I try to explain it to people and they don’t understand; why didn’t I just stop them, right? Why didn’t I? I mean I was laughing, wasn’t I? Did I enjoy it? Was it actually funny?
No.
I was sexually assaulted by a couple. They’re still together now, a few years on, which is cute. I went right back to being friends with them because emotions are complicated. Maybe I should have done things differently. Maybe I should have stood up for myself instead of just being pushed over.
All I know is that I was sexually assaulted. They wronged me on a fundamental level. The barrage of emotions that resulted from it: my confused remaining attraction to Natalie, my desperate attempts to try and not to make a fuss out of it, or my furious, homicidal, soul-sundering rage towards Dave, were all the result. The moral greys around my actions, and how I dealt with the fallout are all down to personal opinion.
I was violated. That is the truth.”
—ASadTaleToTell0111 
